Milwaukeeans, let's take our city for a road test! Like most people, we start our day with a choice of transit on public infrastructure. Along sidewalks, streets and rails, we move to jobs, homes, office buildings and places of entertainment. We get around on bicycles, buses, streetcar, automobiles, pick-up trucks, skateboards, rollerblades, feet, handicap rollers and every other form of wheeled contraptions imaginable.
Much of the future success and attractiveness of Milwaukee will depend on developing transit planning that enhances social, economic and environmental benefits. We all want a city that is more livable as time goes on. Functional transportation is the epicenter of sustainable living.
City administrators, civic leaders and planning engineers have all worked to provide us with great ways to get around town. I talked with many of them recently to find out what is being worked on for now, the next few years and 10 years down the road. Jump on Milwaukee and let's get this road test going!
Everybody Rides the Bus
Several times each day I ride the magical vehicles that are the Milwaukee County Transit System buses. Just a few steps from my residence on Milwaukee’s East Side, I can get on and arrive close to just about anywhere in the city. Buses are a force multiplier in the transit system. They are even equipped with bike racks. The bus connects us to Amtrak, the airport and even boats.
Matt Sliker, Integrated Marketing Manager for MCTS, speaks about the benefits of the new schedule time precision plan. "Our proposed MCTS NEXT plan is aimed at increasing efficiency and creating faster service for riders,” he says. “One of our main goals is to increase the number of high frequency routes that we offer, where buses come every 15 minutes or better. When buses come that often, riders don't even need to rely on a schedule, because they know a bus will be coming momentarily." Then there is the new enhanced bus app. If you don't have cash or a bus card, Sliker says, "riders will buy a 90-minute ticket for $2 or a full 24-hour day ticket for $5 using a credit card, PayPal, Venmo or Apple Pay." Wow, no money in my pockets? Not a problem—I can ride the bus just using the app on my cell.
|
|
Vital to the future of mass transit are suburban to inner city BRTs (bus rapid transit routes) that will be put in place during the next 10 years. Sliker describes the MCTS East-to-West BRT route as “a nine-mile, regional planned route that will connect thousands of riders every day to major employment, education and recreational destinations through downtown Milwaukee, Milwaukee's Near West Side, Marquette University, Wauwatosa and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center." According to Sliker, this will be the first rapid bus transit in the Milwaukee metropolitan region. And there is a lot of excitement about economic development and reduced road back-ups all across this area.
Customer satisfaction is key. "The proposed design for our BRT project, which is still in development, calls for seating, shelter, ticket vending machines and possibly even a snowmelt system,” Sliker says. “Specifics on the BRT shelter designs are still being ironed out."
Already, the "live bus tracking" component of the MCTS app means riders won’t have to wait at the stops any longer than necessary. "The Ride MCTS app is the first smartphone app in Wisconsin that allows riders to plan their trip, buy a ticket and track their bus in real time," Sliker explains.
Sliker sums up the MCTS philosophy of public transportation: "Whether it's a bus, streetcar, train, bicycle, scooter or just a pair of walking shoes, we encourage folks to ditch the car and use alternative transportation whenever possible. The strongest communities are ones that prioritize and integrate all forms of transit. We're a big fan of any project that makes getting around Milwaukee County easier."
MCTS is currently forecasting cutting 10% of service, due to a budget gap, on some routes. We bus riders must advocate for full funding of MCTS. Our goal should be to expand bus service and support public officials who demand the same!
Sneakers and Spokes
The new "Milwaukee Pedestrian Plan, January 2019 (Draft)" includes planning by the Milwaukee Department of Public Works for many additional bike lanes over the next two years as well as "refuge islands" for pedestrians in the middle of high use multi-lane streets. The Pedestrian Plan also mentions ultra-high visibility street markings that should be everywhere we walk or bike. As of now, these glowing stripes are nowhere to be seen in Milwaukee. One way of increasing that visibility is a 3M product called Stamark, a glowing tape in a rainbow of colors for streets and sidewalks that snow can't hide in the winter and commuters and cars will certainly see even at night.
Brian DeNeve, marketing and communications officer for Milwaukee Public Works, is hopeful regarding proposed pedestrian safety improvements. "Walkability is important because at some point of each trip, everyone walks. Every trip in a car, on a bus or by bike starts and ends with a walk," he says.
Will Kort, spokesperson of the Milwaukee Bicycle Collective, adds, "Too often, the lane markings wear away almost completely before the lanes are repainted" and "short stretches of bicycle lanes may not do much to enhance safety if they don't have logical connections at each end." The need is for bicycle lanes to be consistent and complete all across a bike route. Kort proposes that "unique marking schemes and colors, such as the green patches already in use at some intersections, may enhance rider visibility and safety. Intermittent center lane markings on shared use trails may serve as a reminder to all users to stay to the right."
Milwaukee should take a look at New York City's "High Line." This is an architectural designed rehab of an abandoned elevated rail line. It's a green park up in the air, above street level, with plants, trees and grass alongside bike lanes and walking paths that connect such new features as the massive Hudson Yards retail, restaurant and entertainment district. Can one imagine what a "High Line" would mean for Downtown Milwaukee, possibly connecting the Historic Third Ward to the lake for walk and bike adventures? Day trippers and shoppers would come from all points of the compass to experience this type of structure in Milwaukee, bringing economic stimulus to the area.
Light Rail From the Suburbs and Genuine High-Speed Rail to Chicago
Light rail from outlying suburbs of Milwaukee and a 200 mph, high-speed electric train to Chicago would be incredible transit additions to the Milwaukee metro area. But these two modes of transit are wildly expensive. For example, the City of Minneapolis' green-line light rail from suburban Eden Prairie to downtown Minneapolis has a cost approaching $3 billion dollars. The federal government has agreed to pay for one billion.
The most useful light rail transit route for Milwaukee would run down Wisconsin Avenue with stops all along the way and spreading west, south and north along the interstates at street level—on a special extra rail line built alongside existing vehicle lanes—to the suburbs. The cost for building in all those directions might approach $10 billion or more, in today's dollars. Wait a decade and then double that amount for rising costs.
According to Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, "Chicago to Milwaukee would be a great market for high speed rail, especially if it stopped at both O'Hare and Mitchell Field. The 40-minute trip time would tie Milwaukee, Chicago and O'Hare together, to the benefit of all." Imagine getting on at a new multi-modal high-speed rail station in Milwaukee and arriving at your O'Hare flight to non-stop destinations all around the globe in 40-minutes! Cost for the high-speed line? Think north of $70 billion dollars. Well, it's all great dream fuel anyway.
Transit Magic is in the Air Milwaukee
It's great to have the City of Milwaukee and transit activist citizens getting together for many diverse discussions about how Milwaukeeans will move about in the next decade. Transit planning is a creative work in progress, with many voices and concerns to be heard. A good transportation design is a beautiful work of engineering and the industrial arts, creating jobs and using new technologies. Milwaukee is a gorgeous city with a geographical gift of an inland sea, Lake Michigan. Connecting all transportation opportunities in one project will give Milwaukee a world class focus for the future.
